Absinthe Makes the Heart Grow Fonder
by SweetMaddness
Summary: An unofficial sequal to His Mouth Will Taste of Wormwood. Has foul language and gay themes but nothing really dirty


Disclaimer: Neither boy belongs to me. This is not to be sold or to be posted without my permission.   
  
Absinthe Makes the Heart Grow Fonder  
By Aphony Cree  
Based on His Mouth Will Taste of Wormwood by Poppy Z. Brite  
  
As autumn came our mansion in Baton Rogue started to show it's age. The wind whistled and howled as it squeezed itself through window frames. The lightest steps made the floor boards groan in protest. The creek of rusty door hinges squealed through the house with only the lightest of touches. They all rose up and mingled with my cries and screams in a vast symphony of despair.  
Despite all of my attempts, he had not wanted me. I had gone again to the ancient graveyard, stumbling through fog so thick it enveloped me like a velvet cocoon. It had taken hours in this weather to find the gnarled cross of our lover's grave. The earth offered no resistance to my spade, still soft from our earlier extraction.  
He lay silent and still in his coffin. Pale skinned lids hid the dark caves of his eyes, delicate fingers like sticks of ivory were crossed over his unmoving chest.  
I slid into the small space and covered his body with mine. I felt his bones, brittle with age, shift from my weight but not break. Other than the natural adjustments his body had to make against mine, he remained dead and unmoving.  
My mouth found his and slicked his parched lips with the spit of my tongue. His hands were pried apart and moved to encircle my neck. I spoke to him as a lover and a friend. I recited chants and songs I'd studied from a book of voodoo. I beat at his face and his chest, issued threats and pleas, but still he lay with the peace of death, never offering to grant me the same gift.  
I laid with him until sunlight started poking through the mist. It was only my fear of prison that finally made me drag myself from the grave and cover it back up with the rich black dirt before I was seen.  
The next day I made my way back to him, uncovering his coffin with the skill of a master. I pulled a bottle of absinthe from my worn satchel and pried his beautiful mouth open. The thick liquid flowed over his tongue and down his unyielding throat but the pale bow of his lips remained cold and unmoving. I gave him half the bottle in the manner, promising him all he wanted, our entire stash, if only he grant me the mercy of sending me to Louis. Once again, I was forced to shovel earth back over his grave in the pale light of dawn.  
By the third night, desperation had made me defiant. Until then, I had left his fetish undisturbed. It's powers felt strange in my hand and I could not imagine it in the possession of anyone other than Louis or our beautiful voodoo priest. But our priest had been uncooperative and I decided my attempts to please him were in vain. What I really needed was the beauty of his curse. I yanked on the copper chain until it snapped, nearly taking his head off with it, then recovered the grave for the last time and made my way   
home.  
The clasp had broken and I had to knot it around my neck to keep it in place. The fang felt cool against my throat as I slid my naked body into bed. The window was open and the musty smell of the swamp filled the room as I drifted into an elated sleep, like a child on Christmas Eve who was eager for morning to arrive.  
Three bodies were found that night, all of them withered like dead leaves, void of all moisture. I read it all in the evening paper as I lay tangled in the sheets of the still empty bed. I had awoken to find the window shut and the necklace gone but no charity of death was given to me. I licked my lips and tasted a stale hint of wormwood, the last traces of his parting kiss.  
I had no need to go grave robbing after that, Louis' house was the only tomb I craved. I shut myself up in there and vowed to spend the rest of my days in a drunken stupor, a bottle being the first thing I touched in the morning and the only lover I took to bed with me at night. The case of absinthe seemed like a bottomless pit with no one to share it with and it took me a month to drink all but the last bottle.  
Louis' medicine cabinet held a small orange container of pills, lithium, prescribed a year ago in an attempt to level the effects of bipolar disorder. He had tried them for a week then abandoned them saying they clouded his brain and stifled his creative mind. The pills seemed like the last glorious gift he had left for me.  
An hour later, I was stumbling down the dark steps that led to our lovingly stocked museum. I lit violet colored candles scented with lilac and sat against a stone wall, pulling Louis' head into my lap. Soft flakes of skin fell away as I caressed his decaying cheek.   
The chalky taste of lithium mingled with the bitterness of wormwood as it entered my waiting mouth. I cradled it on my tongue, let it flow between my teeth, before finally pushing it down my throat. The bottle disappeared slowly. I had to fight with my stomach to keep the vile drug down and bite my hands until they bled to keep my eyes from closing. The case of absinthe had been our greatest prize and I refused to leave a single drop behind. When the last green mouthful passed my lips, only then did I embrace the sleep.   
In my last living moments I dreamed of Louis. I felt his skin, as soft and smooth as the first time we'd touched, sliding against mine. His tongue made a languid circle around my nipple as his fingers found their way inside of me. I wished for him to be waiting for me on the other side, imagined us walking arm and arm into infinity. But even if he wasn't there, I would find him. I'd break open every crypt and dig up every grave until at last our souls could be together in the ultimate museum of death.  



End file.
